


Her Red Right Hand

by georgette_the_frog



Series: Long is the Way [1]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Badass Amaya, Cinnamon Roll Gren, Graphic Descriptions of Injuries, Huddling For Warmth, Mercy Killing, Military Politics, Not As Shippy As It Sounds, OC death, Origin Story, Survival, Trust, Wilderness Survival, pre-TDP, reader's choice - may be read as a ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 04:31:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16055597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/georgette_the_frog/pseuds/georgette_the_frog
Summary: Being granted her first aide-de-camp ought to be a complement, but when Captain Amaya meets the overeager Lieutenant she’s been assigned, it feels like an oblique insult from high command. While he’s a fairly skilled interpreter, he’s a freshly minted officer who’s never seen combat, and she has no time to run a greenie through the paces.But when everything goes wrong and she finds herself stranded in a storm with nobody but an injured aide, she’ll be damned before she lets him die on her watch.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a snippit exploring how two people with completely different personalities wound up trusting each other so much, and it went from a little 500 word blurb to an actual story. So...here we are. Hope y'all like survival stories.
> 
>  **This comes with my standard M or E rated fic disclaimer: if you cannot handle difficult or questionable topics in fiction, this fic is not the fic for you.** It may contain mature themes, including but not limited to graphic violence, sex, substance abuse, physical/emotional abuse, etc.  
>  The two main characters in this story are written as adults at 20 and 29, and being at war they are frequently forced to make hard, horrible decisions. Some of those decisions may be morally grey or downright awful, so mind the tags.
> 
> NOTE: I am absolutely 110% happy to get and incorporate feedback and critique on my use of ASL in this piece, as I've got limited experience with it and that was...7 years ago? The bits in italics, the "interpreted" bits, are not precisely what Amaya is conveying (as ASL doesn't translate word-for-word to English). Rather, it's written as Gren would interpret what Amaya is saying, and therefore being relayed to readers in that manner.

It’s a beautiful early spring day, sunshine and early growth and bright blue skies with fluffy, picturesque clouds. Captain Amaya, however, has a metaphorical storm cloud over her head and a foul mood to go with it. She’s been assigned an aide, and she doesn’t want one. Or at least, not this one. It’s nothing against him, of course, but the circumstances of his assignment. 

It ought to be a complement, that she’s risen through the ranks high enough to justify an aide, but no. It feels like Sarai is nannying her, pulling rank to give her special treatment. “He’ll help,” Sarai had said. “You won’t have to write everything down for your CO and your command.” Sarai had hand picked him just before she’d taken leave, choosing him from a select number of recently commissioned graduates from officer training.

Amaya admits to herself it’s likely her sister meant well, but it still leaves her with the taste of metal and wounded pride in her mouth. Others have been less subtle in their intentions. “He’s an interpreter,” Col. Ayler had told her outright, and she’d had to put her slate aside before she could write something out of line.

She’s done perfectly fine on her own so far, and it stings to know others have decided to interfere as she’s approaching an age where she could potentially be promoted to Major.

* * *

His introduction is awkward. He salutes as he’s introduced, but his posture is wary. “Lieutenant Gren, Ma’am. Reporting as directed.” Then he pauses, uncertain, and signs the same.

She snaps off a quick _L-T_ in sign, watching his expression for any hint of confusion. If he can’t keep up with her, she doesn’t want him, and it’ll be worth the hassle to argue with leadership about his appointment. She has no room in her schedule for a fool. _Have they told you what you’ll be doing as my Aide?_

Gren colors a bit, but responds quickly. _Yes Ma’am._

_And?_

He hesitates. _They told me I’ll be acting as your interpreter, and in any additional capacity you see fit._

It’s a carefully diplomatic answer, so she pushes for more. _Meaning?_

He hesitates again, sensing a trap. It was both what she’d hoped for and dreaded. Hoped for, because she has no use for someone who can’t think on their feet. Dreaded because it means he might see fit to change her orders or fudge his interpretations. He’ll need careful watching until such time as she decides she can trust him.

 _I’m under your command, Ma’am. I am to assist in any way you deem fit, although if acting as an interpreter I am to allow for more direct commands, and to aid you in picking up on any…_ he pauses, clearly trying to think of the best way to word it without irritating his new CO or speaking badly of other officers.

She doesn’t smile, but it’s a near thing. A sense of self-preservation. Good. Maybe he’ll be able to learn. _If someone speaks and isn’t facing me._

He looks relieved and nods.

_Where did you learn to sign?_

_For my younger brother. I’ve had about 14 years of practice._ His signing is clear, if not as crisp and defined as Amaya’s.

Still, Amaya can’t help but give a faint nod. Not quite approval, but not disapproval. She signs _We shall see_ and leaves it at that for the time being.

* * *

It doesn’t take long. She sees, and his assignment feels like a bad joke.

To say she’s thoroughly unimpressed with Gren as a soldier is an understatement. Barely out of officers training, he’s still the sort of coltish-gangly that looks like he’s not grown into his own bones yet. He ought to be fine with the speed of the full company, but she’s not sure he’ll be able to keep up on the next mission. Her orders are to take a smaller squad of 10 just over the northern border for recon in the mountains. They leave in a week and she’s about ready to jump out of her skin with anticipation. It’s a mission that requires some subtlety, but Amaya relishes the opportunity to directly command a small group again.

But the first week with him is almost enough to drive her mad. Gren follows her around like a shadow and it’s…annoying. Helpful, yes, but annoying. He’s still fresh-faced and optimistic, with a mop of copper hair and a golden attitude to match. He’s personable, and the rest of the company takes to him like he’s a new pet. He’s like a retriever, eager on commands and quick to attention, like he still has something to prove.

He does, of course, but it’s not what he thinks it is. He needs to prove himself competent enough to be her right-hand man, and it’ll take more than just being capable of relaying her orders quickly and accurately. They’ve assigned her a brand spanking newly pauldroned intellectual whose skills with a blade are, quite frankly, utterly lamentable.

And now she has to take him along on a critical recon mission.

She’s going to punch Sarai after she comes back from maternity leave.

* * *

It takes two weeks in the mountains, but her initial annoyance fades. Gren grows on her, damn him. He’s difficult not to like, although she tries, she really does. The squad hazes him a bit, putting him on the least pleasant campsite tasks, but he handles it all without complaint. It’s not long before they’re calling him a buttered blue with actual affection, instead of the usual derogatory tones that accompany the nickname for fresh officers.

Amaya herself puts him through the paces, trying to trip him up with particularly quick or difficult sign, but he almost always manages, and if he comes across something he doesn’t understand, he asks for clarification in spelling and commits the sign to memory. She has yet to trip him up the same way more than once. He’s quick and he’s clever and yes, he’s somewhat useless at combat practice, but that’s something she can send him off to work on with Warai and Kererra when they make camp for the evenings. That’s something they can work on.

Internally, she’s still a bit steamed. It’s not that she didn’t want an aide, but proving Sarai right is always an irritating exercise.

* * *

The mountains along the border are fairly challenging to navigate, and the most reasonable trail actually takes them over the border into Xadia. It’s a snow-covered path that weaves between ridges and drop-offs, cutting through trees when it drops to lower elevations. Still, the trail here can be treacherous, and they’ve left their horses at a town eleven days hike southwest.

The sky is a soft grey, lightly dropping snow on them as them move. It’s the best time to travel. The fresh snow will help cover their tracks, a risk while they’re in the area of a disputed border.

Lona and Kererra hike a bit ahead, the most experienced scouts of the group. The rest of them hike in a loose pack, stopping to take records about the terrain and distance every couple hours. Gren sticks near her, as does Molvaran, a scrappy older Sargent she’d served with since she’d been commissioned. They’re not a particularly chatty group, but most of the men and women in her squad are old hands. They’re long accustomed to Amaya’s leadership style, so for them, it’s a companionable silence.

They catch up to Lona and Kererra at a U-shaped widening of the trail, with a sheer cliff face on the left and a twenty foot dropoff on the right. An outward jut of the rock face about forty feet down the trail cuts some of the wind, and although it’s not as defensible as she’d like, it’s about the best natural shelter they could ask for out here. The clouds are getting darker, and the light snow that’s been falling all day is quickly turning to more substantial flakes. There’s enough space in the area to set up shelters along the cliff face, and she makes the call, turning to get Gren’s attention and signing with some difficulty, due to her thick gloves.

_Set up camp here, we hunker down and see what the weather is going to do._

Gren interprets for the squad, and the group starts setting up camp. Amaya clears a bit of snow close to the rising cliff face and drops her pack and shield, stretching her shoulders and doing a lap about the space as she starts prioritizing. Shelter, warmth, water, food, and a watch rota for the night. Tented lean-to’s against the cliff face will provide the best shielding from the elements, but they’ve done that most nights for the last week. The squad knows that. She looks into the trees below and studies the rock face of the dropoff. Rowen is a skilled climber, and with a tie-off, he should be able to get down there and scavenge for enough dead branches, maybe a dead tree, to start a fire. There’s almost always dry wood somewhere in a forest, it’s just a matter of knowing how to find it.

It’s a stunning view from the dropoff, as if the entire valley falls away from this point. There are a few lone birds circling over the trees in the distance, but otherwise it looks frozen still. Even the breeze doesn’t seem to disturb the scene. It’s almost like a painting, as if the entire valley has been captured in a single point in time.

With no warning, she’s slammed from behind, metal colliding with the back of her head as she’s thrown bodily to the ground. She can feel the sound of the noise that leaves her as the air is knocked from her lungs. It’s a full-body experience of _oomph_ that leaves her dazed in the snow, staring up at the low-hanging grey clouds.

Her head is screaming and her vision is momentarily blurry and she scrambles to make sense of it all. There’s a flurry kicked up beside her and she twists to find Gren, struggling to roll to his back. When he does, he clutches at his upper chest and mouths something she can’t quite make out the shape of, even as he grimaces and repeats it, over and over and then goes to just one word, over and…

He lets go of his chest and his hand comes away bloody, but he makes a distinctive crescent with his fingers, pulling it away from above his eye and then pulling it back to swipe a line across his brow and draw a shape with his thumb. Then he sweeps an open hand at the sky in an arc, palm up. They’re incomplete signs, but she gets it, and the world snaps into focus through the pain.

Sun and sky.

Elves.

It’s an ambush.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter contains copious amounts of graphic violence. All following chapters are less awful, but this one is rough. TW for blood, gore, graphic depiction of injuries and death.

The world is silent chaos. Elves are notorious for this. To most humans, it would be a disadvantage, but Amaya has never known any different. To her, the elves are fast and brutal, but it’s no different than any other being in battle. She has never depended on her hearing the way others do. Instead, she depends on shadows and terrain, body language and proper distance. And a little bit of luck.

The shine of the sun off the snow is half-blinding, but she takes in what she can in the space of a moment. She finds her feet, freeing her blade from her side and instinctively reaching for her shield, which isn’t there.

There are two cloaked bundles motionless in the churned snow, two down already, plus Gren, and in that moment she blocks it out. She has lost people before, but there’s no time to feel it, there are others to try to protect.

It’s mostly luck that gets her halfway across the ledge to her shield without being shot, but perhaps it’s that there’s only one archer, and before she has time to think she’s engaged with a nimble sky elf that’s faster than her. Still, she’s got a longer reach, and when she abruptly leaves her ideal distance and pushes in too close for easy combat, the elf staggers. Amaya knees them in the gut and the impact drops them low, right in front of her.

Elves are fast and nimble and strong, but one thing Amaya has learned is that if you can get in close range, their bones hold up no better than the average human.

She slams her knee up into the elf’s lowered face and as their head snaps back in a spray of blood from a broken nose, she presses her advantage, catching them about the neck with her free arm, spinning behind them, and twisting. She can feel the telltale grind and crunch of bone even through her coat, and the elf drops to the ground.

Something clips her coat but flies through it without hitting the flesh underneath. Her shield. She needs her shield, she needs it now, and then she needs to find that fucking archer.

Four paces from her, Rowen engages another elf, and he’s struggling to keep up with the bastard. It’s an instant choice she makes, to step in and help, but it does little good. The elf’s blade slips through his defenses even as Amaya throws herself at the figure’s back. The blade in their hand misses Rowen’s throat, but instead it carves through teeth and tongue and jaw. He goes down, his face a bloody ruin.

Even as she drives her blade up through the elf’s back, hopefully disemboweling them through all the layers of clothes, she locks eyes with Rowen and wishes she hadn’t. His face is haunting and it sticks in her mind’s eye, frozen.

The moment of hesitation is almost enough to get her killed as the elf drives a vicious back kick at her, not dead just yet. They spin and come around at her with the look of a rabid wolf, with nothing left to lose.

“For Xadia!” she reads the elf’s lips as they scream in her face. Amaya isn’t about to argue. Instead, she lets them push the attack, rolling back to the ground and slamming a foot to their hip to direct them up and over her as she falls back and swipes her blade upward at their throat.

There’s a shower of blood. The elf is dead before they hit the ground.

As Amaya regains her feet and turns back toward Rowen, a shot catches him in the ribs and drops him flat in the snow. It urges her back into action and she flings herself toward the cliff face and scoops up her shield just in time. A shot pings off the metal, digging one of the edges back into her arm.

There’s little time to take stock of the situation as she crouches behind the shield, slipping the straps as the archer continues to take shots from a protected position she can’t quite pinpoint.

As her troops fall, the snow underfoot grows chopped and slick with blood and slush. Molvaran and Halle are each holding their own against single enemies, and Kererra has another elf cornered against the dropoff, with a wounded Gren covering her back. Rowen is down and so are two others, although she’s not sure who. Process of elimination means it’s Lona, Del, Saia, or Warai, and the remaining two are missing. She turns and gets eyes on Warai at her six, who cuts down a sunfire elf before running toward Halle and the opponent she’s up against.

Molvaran is on his own and Amaya surges up to help him, but before she gets to him, Warai abruptly changes directions. There’s an instant of confusion before she sees the arrow jutting from his chest. Two more shots take him in the chest and he staggers, but the next shot goes wild over his head and then they stop. Amaya grabs him by the collar and drags him toward the slight cover of the cliff face before he staggers and goes down.

It’s bad. Unless they’ve somehow missed vital organs, he’s looking at an agonizing death over the course of the next few minutes. Archer. The fucking archer, she has to find them and take the bastard down before she loses someone else.

She looks around and the extent of things hits her abruptly. Molvaran, Halle, and Gren are still on their feet, and everyone else is either down or MIA. As she moves to help Gren, who looks like he could fall at any moment, he lets his weapon lower, dropping his guard in exhaustion. She wants to warn him as the elf closes the distance on him, but to her surprise he feigns exhaustion until the elf is just close enough. Then he moves, slamming his opponent in the chest with a front kick that sends the ragged-looking sunfire elf flying off the dropoff. Amaya is proud of him for a moment, but there’s no time to think about it. 

Instead, she turns to Molvaran, who is barely holding his own against an elf carrying a shortsword that glows almost white. The blade shines bright enough to leave trails of color in her vision, like looking at the sun-bright snow. Molvaran is fast and experienced, but even so he’s barely managing to evade the attacks, catching the hilt of the blade with his own rather than letting the radiant blade touch his own.

Double-teaming the sunfire elf gives them better odds, but even so, she knows they’re overwhelmed as she’s forced to leave Molvaran to defend against another opponent, a sky elf that she feels coming the moment before they swipe at her, a short, damaged recurve bow slung at their side.

The archer.

Rage floods her vision and she bashes them with her shield, throwing them back into the ice-covered rock face with a single blow. She sees their mouth open in a scream as their wings are crunched between the weight of their body and the rock, but they don’t stop to catch their breath before they attack again. Amaya catches their blade amid the flurry of broken wings and forces it low, and as the elf screams in rage at her she slams the sharp edge of her shield into their unprotected throat.

She turns back toward Molvaren as the sky elf goes down in a spray of arterial blood, only to be taken by surprise as the sunfire elf lunges at her. The blade pierces her shield like a hot knife through butter until it catches at the hilt, and the force of the attack drives her back to the rock wall, slamming her bodily and snapping her head back.

There’s a half-second of uncertainty as they stare at each other, an instant of stalemate. Amaya is pinned to the wall by her shield arm, and the elf is temporarily weaponless as the glowing blade is embedded in the wall.

Then the moment passes, and they throw themselves into action again, lest the other get the advantage. Amaya desperately dodges the fist the elf aims at her face and slips her shield bindings, dropping low and throwing herself out of the elf’s reach.

It takes another moment for the elf to free the blade from the rock, but it’s not enough time for Amaya to form any sort of plan. She’s driven by sheer battle-reflex, and all she can think is to stay away from the blade. The hilt is safe, but nothing seems to stop the blade.

She backs away, scanning the terrain and searching for any sort of advantage she can use. There’s no help coming. Molvaran is down, and very, very visibly dead. Halle is down, but the enemy she’d been fighting is down as well. Gren is on the ground mere feet from the dropoff, clutching his chest. The snow is slick with blood and gore and packed snow, and with the seeming unstoppable nature of the blade, she needs to keep her distance.

The elf advances on her, slowly working her backwards toward the dropoff with attack after attack that she barely manages to evade. It takes all of Amaya’s wits to navigate the mess of the ground without tripping, but it’s not long before she’s pushed all the way to the cliff face. She steps backward and almost trips over Kererra, who is splayed out on the ground and…Amaya doesn’t let herself finish that thought. She can’t. There’s no time to think about what’s happened, only to focus on what’s happening right now.

She’s got three good paces between herself and the dropoff, no real room to move. If the elf rushes her now, her options are limited. All they have to do is keep pushing her, and judging by the self-satisfied look on their face as they step over Kererra as well, they know it.

From where he is on the ground by Kererra, Gren’s foot lashes up, kicking out the elf’s knee from behind and staggering them.

The moment of surprise gives Amaya an opening, and she rushes the elf, getting low and coming up too close for them to defend properly. She knocks the elf’s arm outward and drags them forward, using her hip as a pivot point to flip them over. As they hit the ground, she throws herself on them and grabs the arm with the blade and twists their wrist and drives the blade into their gut and watches them scream and scream and scream with a twisted sort of righteous satisfaction.

She knows that nothing, _nothing_ will bring her squad back, but this feels like a hollow sort of justice, making this one elf in particular suffer for what the rest of them did to her squad. The blade hits something slightly harder than flesh but that too gives way, and the lower half of the elf’s body goes slack under her. They aren’t dead, not yet, but they aren’t going to survive long.

Amaya climbs off of the elf and looks around, hoping beyond hope for survivors. The outcropping is a bloodbath. The snow is trampled and splashed with blood of various colors, but it feels overwhelmingly red. What remains of her small troop is injured or dying. The rage and loss burns in her throat like acid.

The sunfire elf at her feet still lives. They reek of cooking meat and even with their heavier winter clothes, their belly is spilled open enough that scorched gore and glossy organs are bared to the light. They struggle and gasp horrifically with the look of a fish out of water, but their legs are unmoving. Her gut instinct is to cut their throat, but she needs information, which means she needs Gren to interpret for her. Killing them would have been a mercy, but there’s little room for mercy in this war.

The lieutenant is still on the ground, but he’s managed to pull Kererra partially up onto his lap and she can see his lips move, speaking frantically. Even from where she is, Amaya can see the scout is already gone.

As she picks her way across the space toward them, she makes the mistake of looking down at one of the cloaked bundles on the ground. It’s Del. There’s a single shryke-fletched shot through her throat.

Amaya sees, but doesn’t register. Del’s eyes are wide and she looks surprised. The snow under her is bright red and mostly untouched. Her legs are crumpled under her, her cloak wrapped around her like a shroud. It’s another single image frozen in time that Amaya can’t process right now, but it’s never going to disappear.

Instead, she focuses on Gren. Gren is alive, he’s conscious enough to speak, and right now, his presence is the only thing keeping her thinking logically. She has at least one surviving member of the squad, and they’re her responsibility. She can’t fall apart, not now. They still have to get out of this alive. 

She squats down at his side and he looks up at her. _Let go. She’s gone._

Gren, for all his usual positivity, looks utterly wretched. His face crunches up and has the terrified adrenaline shake of a man who has seen his first real fight, which becomes painfully apparent as he tries to sign and his motions are all but unreadable.

 _Speak. I’ll lipread_ she signs.

“Kererra, she’s…” he says. “Are they all…?”

_Not yet. How many elves did you see?_

“I don’t…! How am I supposed to know that? I wasn’t counting, I was just trying to stay alive!” 

It takes all her focus to make out his words through the tremble, but she gets it and signs back _It’s important. We need to find everyone, take a headcount. Make sure the area is secure._

“How is that important? They’re dead! Everyone else is…” he looks around the clearing, frantic. “They’re all dead!”

_Focus. Did you see any of the others escape? Where is Lona? And Saia?_

Gren’s face crumples. “Lona is too…she’s...” He nods to the rocks over Amaya’s shoulder, and she turns to find the scout’s body caught in an outcropping, her neck at an impossible angle. She must have gone after the archer and wrecked the bastard’s bow.

There’s no time to think it through, though. They need to see if anyone else is alive, and she needs Gren to help her with the elf. _Need you to focus. Can you help me get some answers?_

“We can’t…! There are no answers! This is-!”

_There are a few survivors. One elf. We check our people, see who we can help. Then if the elf is still alive we get answers._

The look on his face is horrible. She’s reminded that he’s young, he’s never seen combat before, he’s just killed his first enemy, and he’s seeing so, so many of his squad dead. But none of that matters right now. They need answers, and the elf is going to give them some.

Gren takes a slow breath, trying to steady himself. His shoulders move visibly even under the layers of his coat.

He finally nods agreement. “Let’s go.”


	3. Chapter 3

Amaya prioritizes, breaking things down into steps she can focus on one at a time. First, they have to do what they can for anyone still alive. The thought of how utterly overwhelming that alone is makes her want to throw up, but she grits her teeth and pushes herself back up to her feet.

She does a headcount, mentally striking off those she knows are already gone. Del, Molvaren, Kererra. She checks the other cloaked figure that had been felled by the archer at the beginning of the fight, and it’s Saia. At least it looks like he had a quick death. Likewise, Warai is gone as well.

The trail is mostly still again, but for the gentle fall of snow and the way Gren wavers on his feet as he rises, and, as she gets closer, the way Halle’s chest heaves as she gasps for breath. Her lips are flecked with blood, and though there’s no other blood, Amaya knows it bodes poorly. Unless she was lucky enough to simply have a tooth knocked out, coughing up blood means something internal. If they had mages and could get her to them now, she might make it, but ultimately, if it’s internal there’s no fix for that out here.

There’s nothing they can do for her right now other than provide some sort of comfort. Gren follows her eyes and sees that Halle is still alive. He doesn’t hesitate to kneel down with her and to provide what comfort he can. A little water from a canteen to wash away the taste of blood. Someone to talk to. Amaya leaves them to check the rest of the squad.

Next is Rowen, who is somehow is still alive when she reaches him. His mouth is a ruined mess, and he has no lips for her to read as he chokes on his own blood. Amaya stoops at his side and holds his hand, trying to provide some sort of comfort so he does not die alone. The look of fear and desperation in his wide eyes makes him look young, and he does not die well. Thankfully, he doesn’t linger. The light leaves his eyes quickly, and the blood where his mouth ought to be stops bubbling. 

As awful as it is, he doesn’t die alone. She tells herself that must count for something. She doesn’t want to risk taking her gloves off to check his pulse, not with the cold, but still. She knows when he goes. She’s seen death too many times before.

Last, she goes to check Lona. With the angle of her neck, if Lona were still alive, she would be in excruciating pain. The practical part of Amaya’s mind tells her that at least it was another quick death. It’s a cold thought, but it’s practical. Logical. There is no room for emotion in what is happening right now. Emotion is only going to get the survivors killed.

There are three of them. Three of ten survive, and Halle looks bad. The likelihood of only two of them making it out of here makes her want to throw up, but it’s a weight that settles on her shoulders, threatening to crush her.

Amaya surveys the area warily, checking on each of the elves in turn. Most of them are gone already, but the sunfire elf that had attempted to gut her with the fancy blade still lingers, reeking of scorched flesh. She yanks the hood back and shoves the scarf down to grab his jaw, checking that he’s semiconscious. His eyes are unfocused, but he tries to look at her as she does so.

Hopefully it’ll be good enough to get some answers out of him before he goes. Amaya goes and stoops over Halle as Gren interprets for her. “I need him for a minute. One of the elves is still alive, and I want a reason for this.”

Halle nods. “I want to know why,” she snarls. Her expression is vicious, twisted further by anger and pain.

“We can give you a merciful death,” Gren says a minute later, relaying her words to the elf. “Otherwise, you will linger. That blade was hot enough to cauterize your wounds. It could take days for you to go. Every minute will be excruciating.”

The elf snarls something through gritted teeth, and Amaya can’t read it. She turns to Gren, who seems reluctant to translate.

 _Tell me_.

“He said ‘fuck you’,” Gren says with a bit of a wince. He pauses at the ensuing string of furious sign, then interprets the general gist of it. “I want to know why?”

“This is our land,” the elf says raggedly. “Xadia is our land, and you are not welcome here.”

Amaya wants to throw up, she wants to cry, she wants to rip the elf’s throat out, but those aren’t responses befitting a Captain. They can hardly be over the border, and up in the mountains like this, is it honestly even worth fighting over? This scrappy little bit of rock and ice can’t possibly be worth the blood that’s been spilled. Her hands shake with anger as she continues signing.

“A border patrol, then. Are there other patrols coming?”

The elf’s eyes narrow in suspicion and he shakes his head minutely. “Don’t know.”

“You’ll need to…” Gren pauses at her vehement signs and censors, “do better than that. For our help. Mercy.”

The elf snaps something Gren can’t translate, then takes a slow, painful breath and considers. “Maybe. They’ll send a search party.”

Amaya looks to Gren and signs _We need to move._

“We can’t move Halle like this, she’s not stable enough to…” He also looks at the dying elf, then turns back to her with an expression like he’s going to cry. He takes his hand away from his shoulder to sign a shaky, one-handed _What do?_

It’s a terrible question. It’s no longer about making camp and getting comfortable before the snow rolls in, they’re up against the clock as soon as the elves realize that their patrol party’s been decimated. It’s a matter of survival. They have to prioritize.

 _Patch you up. Do what we can for Halle. We take shelter. One night._ she signs.

She hands the elf a knife and that’s it. _I’ll give you the means. Do it yourself._ Gren interprets, but his expression is carefully neutral, a look Amaya has come to understand means he disagrees.

Amaya turns her back on the elf, rage and grief crawling up her throat as she goes back to rifle through her pack, searching for the yarrow styptic powder that comes standard in field aid kits. They need to get Gren’s shoulder to stop bleeding and then cleaned up as much as they can, and then they need to figure out shelter from the storm and the oncoming night. The thought of sleeping so close to the bodies makes her bile rise again.

The next time she turns back to look at the elf, the knife is sunk deep between his ribs. No breath moves his chest or fogs the air. Gren tends to Halle, giving her a little more water. It’s awhile before he meets her eyes again.

Amaya doesn’t ask.

* * *

Dealing with Gren’s injury is a difficult prospect. Most of Gren’s coat and upper body is covered in blood, most of it his own, or at least human, although some of it is more purple than red. Peeling his coat open enough to see things is a challenge, but he grits his teeth and bites down on a clean bit of his tunic collar, trying not to move.

It’s bad, but it could technically be worse. The shot has gone through his shoulder from the back, missing his shoulderblade only to skewer the softer meat just under the socket. There’s no way to see through the mess, but judging by the length of the shaft still protruding through his coat from the back of his shoulder and the exit wound, the head has been snapped off at some point during the action.

It’s still bleeding fairly badly so Amaya dumps powdered yarrow from her pack on a bandage, pressing it into the exit wound in the front, where the blood seems to be worst. Gren wavers and looks like he might faint, but he responds better than she expects and manages to put pressure on the wound from the front.

They’re in the middle of nowhere, with no help for several good days’ hike. They’re going to be out here at least until the oncoming storm subsides, and then they’re going to have to get to help, somehow. She knows protocol is to leave an impaled object where it is, but he’s not going to be able to travel far like this.

Still, the snow is getting heavier, and they don’t have time or supplies to build a fire and heat a blade to cauterize it if they remove the broken shaft and can’t stop the bleeding. It’ll have to wait until tomorrow, when they can prepare properly.

For now, Amaya binds the bandage around where the shaft of the arrow still protrudes from his shoulder and tightens it as best she can to put pressure on the wound. There’s not much more they can do but hope the yarrow will do its job. When it’s done and she folds his coat closed again, Gren spits out his collar and sighs with relief. “How about you?”

_I’m fine._

“You’re bleeding.” He points to her face and her head which she touches, each in turn. She touches the back of her head and it aches. When her hand comes away with fresh blood, it dawns on her that she hadn’t made it out unscathed. There’s blood down her face, smeared down onto her armor and coat. It takes a minute to realize her cheek is split open, but in the grand scheme of things it’s a face wound, it probably looks worse than it really is.

Her hat is gone and she has no idea where her helmet went. Instead, she goes hunting for more bandages. A bandage from Del’s kit is almost an earwarmer once folded and tied on, and she pulls her hood back up to try to keep out as much of the cold as she can.

Halle looks bad, and horrible practical part of Amaya wonders if it might not be better to take her aside and give her mercy. Blood dribbles from the corner of her mouth and her eyes are glassy, while the wet wheeze that leaves her lips each time she breathes bodes badly.

Halle can’t travel like this. Gren likely won’t make it very far either, and night is coming. Their best bet is to hunker down and try to make a shelter of some sort, to try to protect them from the elements.

* * *

The sky grows darker slowly but surely, and she recognizes they’re running out of time. She sets Gren about scavenging high priority items from kits, as his injured arm is mostly useless. Gren helps as best he can, grabbing what he can carry in a pack and slinging it over his good shoulder. He looks ghastly, but he somehow grits his teeth and gets through it, even as tears and melting snow cut paths through the gore and grime on his face.

It takes more time than she wants to find a suitable space for a shelter, about forty, fifty yards back down the trail where a snowdrift up against the rock face is about six feet deep, deep enough to really dig into. It takes the better part of an hour to do it, but when she’s finished she’s got a high-walled trench on two sides and the cliff face on the other. Heading back toward the ambush site, she retrieves the only polearms the squad had been carrying and as many lean-to tarps as she can carry. Before she goes, she checks on Gren and Halle, the latter of which is going a pallid shade.

The remainder of the shelter is made up of tarps spiked down into the top walls of the trench, supported against potential collapse by the poles. The remaining tarps go on the ground as insulation and she surveys her work with brief satisfaction before going back for the others.

* * *

It takes both of them to move Halle down the trail to the shelter. The first few ways they try to move her jostle her ribs too much, so in the end they pull her down the trail on a tarp, sliding her over the snow until they can pull her into the shelter.

As dark falls, they only have time for two more trips to gather what they can. Gren has already gathered the most useful supplies, namely food, water, and medical supplies, but he’s also made a pile of clean, dry clothes scavenged from people’s packs.

Amaya picks up the unstoppable blade from the ground where she’d thrown it after disemboweling the elf that had carried it. Gren looks at her, puzzled for a moment before he seems to come to the same conclusion she has, that it could be extremely useful in any further survival situation.

Once Gren and Halle are settled in, Amaya takes a moment to steel herself before she turns to him. _Stay here with Halle. I’ll be back._

“Where are you going?”

_There’s enough time for this now._

He nods, slowly, realizing what she’s going back for. “Don’t get lost.”

* * *

The cold bites, but not as horribly as the bite of rage and sick shame as Amaya retrieves seven rank identification pauldrons. Their names and next of kin are attached on a small metal plate on the inside of the leather, and she owes that much to their families. If she can’t bring her squad home, she owes them this.

She wants to sit in the snow and cry, but there’s no time for that. If she goes down now, she’s not getting back up. The night and the snow will claim her. Part of her desperately wishes they would. Despair and failure writhe in her throat, and the guilt tastes like acid.

But she still has two survivors to take care of. There’s no time for grief. Not now.

Amaya makes it back to the shelter as full dark falls and crawls in next to Gren, blocking part of the entrance with packs and giving Halle as much breathing room as she can. The falling snow has started to insulate the roof structure as well as the sides, and the space is finally a tolerable temperature. 

She sits down in the dark and waits.

* * *

The drop after combat is brutal, but Amaya knows what to expect. She’s done this before. For a time, she twitches and jitters, hypomania setting in. Her muscles start to ache. Worse is the nausea, which sends her scrambling out of the shelter to throw up outside a couple times. It’s exhausting.

Gren is no better, although his symptoms are slightly easier to deal with in the confined space. He shakes almost violently for a time, and then he crashes abruptly, passing out against her shoulder.

Amaya uses the light of the shining blade to check on Halle every so often, but her prospects are grim. Her complexion is so pale it’s almost grey, and she fades in and out of consciousness. She’s gone into shock, her skin cold and clammy to the touch and they have no way to warm her other than to keep her close and wrap her under the blankets they’ve managed to salvage in the hope that their collective body heat will be enough to help her.

In the back of her mind, Amaya knows she shouldn’t sleep. If she sleeps here, if the cold gets to her, she may never wake up. She can feel the wind howl outside their tiny pocket of insulation, the air brushing her frozen nose ever so softly. It’s a marvel she can still feel anything at all.

But when the full crash finally hits her, she’s out like a light.

* * *

Amaya wakes to the numbed feeling of someone clutching her arm, then her gloved hand. It's a moment before memory comes rushing back in and she recognizes the sort of soft desperation as Gren.

He moves her hand to feel his in the dark, slowly fingerspells out _H-a-l-l-e_ and moves her hand to rest high on Halle’s chest, where her tunic has been pulled far enough back to loosen her clothes and expose her collarbones.

There's a deep, awful rattling feeling in her breath, and she can feel what Gren is trying to tell her. Halle is going. It won’t be long now before they lose her too.

They sit in the dark, each holding one of her cold hands and then each other's until she fades. Gren must hear her last breath, and when it's gone he grips Amaya’s hand, shaking but clinging to the only other survivor.

Amaya carefully feels Halle’s face and closes her eyes. With the storm, there's nowhere to move the body without losing most of the almost comfortable warmth they've hoarded inside the shelter. It's a horrible realization, but they're stuck sleeping next to a corpse. She signs as much to Gren.

Bundled together as they are, she can feel the way Gren responds, suppressing shudders and desperately trying not to cry. It’s not long before deep sobs wrack through him, and he shoves his face in the cloaks Amaya’s wrapped about her shoulders to try to hide it.

Amaya feels like she's walking on cracking ice. One wrong move and she's going to snap as well, but it can't be here and now. She's got to be strong enough to get them through this. Gren's sobs and breathing eventually settle out as he cries himself to sleep, and only then does she let herself breathe in the ugly, horrible feeling of failure and grief again. She cries, but it's a horrible, choked sort of feeling, and the pressure in her throat doesn't subside.

She sleeps in fits and bursts from then on, flung back into wakefulness every so often as reality crashes in on her.

There is no defined morning, but there is some light outside the shelter, lighting up much of the snow built up around the entrance. With how much he needs to rest while he can, she doesn't want to wake Gren, so she leaves him be until he wakes on his own.

It’s not a pleasant awakening.

* * *

They clear the bags and the remaining snow from the entrance and climb out into the stark light of day, leaving Halle where she is.

"I thought...somehow I thought it was just a...a nightmare." Gren says, looking out at the mountain snow. His expression is one of barely contained misery, his eyes puffy and red-rimmed from all the crying. The red of his eyes and the slightly waxy look of his skin makes his eyes look unnaturally blue. It’s not a good look.

 _No._ She brushes off one of the packs and digs into it, pulling out some of the easiest rations to access.

Some of the preserved rations are still wrapped in cloth, particularly the sphere-shaped biscuit-like rations, quick bites of seeds and grains and nuts, held together with ground nut paste and stable fats. She passes some to Gren and between the two of them, they go through a day's supply for four people. They won't be short on food for some time, as long as they're able to carry what they need.

Amaya makes a sort of lookout perch lined with the tarps, and they discuss what they need to do for awhile. Amaya lays it all out: they need to address his shoulder, get as much water as they can, pack food and other supplies, and then they need to try to follow the trail back. Gren already looks bad, but if they can get as much distance in before he needs to rest, they'll stand a better chance.

Gren already knows the answer, but he asks anyway. "What are we going to do with them?"

_We can't take them with._

"We can't just...leave them like this"

_We'll do what we can for them, move them to the side of the trail. Try to keep scavengers away._

Gren nods and stands, taking a deep breath. "Alright. Let's see what we can do with this arrow, so I can help."

* * *

Instead of building a fire to heat a blade for possible cauterization, Amaya checks the heat of the glowing blade on part of the rock face. It ought to be hot enough. Ideally, they won't have to use it, but it's impossible to be sure until the arrow is out. The rest of the things they need come from Del’s pack: more bandages, powdered yarrow, and a stable calendula salve she’d carried in case of injury. Not that it would have been much help if there had been more survivors.

By the time they’ve got his coat opened up and the bandages peeled back enough that she can get a slippery grip on the shaft of the snapped arrow, he’s sweating with nervousness.

“Do I get a count of three or something?” his lips say as he tries to come across unconcerned. His body says otherwise as his breathing ratchets up a notch and the blood runs from his face.

 _Sure_ she signs, gripping the shaft with her right hand and making him wince as she counts with the other. _One-!_

His entire body jolts and his mouth opens with surprise as she pulls it out. Then he curls in on himself, shaking as she quickly gets the prepared bandages on both the entry and exit wounds and hopes for the best. If the yarrow and compression can’t stop the bleeding, she’s going to have to go to plan B and cauterize everything, and that’ll increase the risk of infection. If plan B doesn’t work, they’re going to have a problem. If there are any bits of material in the wound, they’re going to have a problem. If the wound is already contaminated, they’re going to have a problem.

There are a lot of potential problems, and not many solutions. There’s not much for it but to move forward and try to find help.

* * *

When it’s all said and done, the blood slows to a sluggish drip and then, thankfully, starts to clot in the linen of the bandages. Gren still doesn't have much use of his arm, but it's better than nothing. He's able to shoulder some weight on his good side, and when it comes to moving bodies, he’s able to help her a bit.

Using a tent tarp as something between a sling and a sled, they manage to get the bodies further down the trail and lay them out under an outcropping. The extra tarps from the shelter are enough to cover them, in the hope that snow will cover them and scavengers won’t get to them. It’s a slim, almost impossible, hope.

The attackers they push to the side of the trail, but only enough that they’re out of the way. She doesn’t want them mixed up with her people, on the chance she and Gren make it out of this mess alive and eventually make it back to recover them.

They tie the older, more malleable oiled tarps about their bodies, helping to cut the wind without taking up space in the packs. Gren needs her help to get his gear slung on his back, but once the shoulder strap he can handle and a makeshift chest strap are fixed, the waist strap is secure enough to center the weight of it on his body.

Amaya fills her own pack as best as she can, condensing as many useful things into as little space as possible. They can't take everything, but they take as many of the basics as they can. Rations and practical medical gear are the first things scavenged as they try to clean up the camp. The canteens are filled with snow, gathered away from the ambush site. In the end, Amaya takes her shield. It's weight that perhaps she doesn't need, but something in her gut tells her not to leave it behind.

Though they take up too much space for their practical use, eight rank pauldrons slot together in her pack. They weigh on her more than the rest of her gear does.

* * *

Amaya knows their best chance is to make for the settlement where they’d left the horses. Still, that’s at least two weeks steady march away, and she doesn’t think Gren has that in him. His wound may have stopped bleeding, but the risk of infection is still high. If the shot carried anything in with it, if the wound is contaminated, before long he’s going to be fighting for his life. So they need to find something closer. Something. Anything.

They have to keep moving. If they stop, they’re going to die, either of cold or infection or, eventually, hunger. And she’ll be damned if she’s going to let that happen.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience everyone, work this week has been Very Bad. Still! I'm aiming to have the next chapter up sometime in the next week (See how I didn't say a particular day? It's cause I missed the last self-imposed deadline. Go me.)
> 
> -G

The snow isn’t terribly deep, but it’s exhausting to trudge through nonetheless. The trail is generally still visible, the packed down dip in the snow from the squad’s previous passage not quite hidden. In the deeper drifts on the trail, the snow comes a bit above her knees, but in most places it’s only to mid-calf. Thankfully, the most recent fall is light and fluffy, although as they start to lose altitude it gets stickier and harder to walk through.

Amaya takes the lead, cutting through some of the heaviest snow and turning back to warn Gren of any bad footing, but it’s difficult with just the two of them. It’s a long, slow day, and they make headway at a decent pace. They take a brief stop for a meal around midday, but then continue as before. Amaya checks back on him fairly regularly, trying to make sure she isn’t driving them at a pace he can’t handle with his injuries, but he’s tougher than he looks and manages to keep up until the sun dips toward the mountainline in the distance.

When they stop and put together a shelter, it’s clear he’s starting to struggle. Stripping back the cloak he’s wrapped around his shoulders and face shows that his skin has gone a sickly sallow color.

_How are you feeling?_

He shrugs it off. “I’ll be alright if I can get some rest.”

The shelter puts them in close quarters, but it’s the easiest way to conserve warmth. They curl up together, past the point of personal boundaries after the previous night’s nightmare, and it’s not long before Gren passes out.

Unable to sleep, Amaya stares up at the tarp overhead, trying to calculate what it’s going to take to get them out of this alive. They have enough rations to last them a fair time, having scavenged supplies from the group, but at this point, starvation isn’t going to kill them. Exposure will or, in Gren’s case, lack of proper medical care.

They need to move, and they need to move fast, ideally before another storm strikes. They can’t afford to be stuck in a shelter for the duration of a storm, or trying to make headway through even deeper snow. Gren’s struggling enough as it is. Despite the fact that he hasn’t complained, she can see it in his face when he pulls the cloak down so she can read his lips. He’s got a tightness to his eyes and brows that’s grown constant, and he’s been actively gritting his teeth against a grimace. With him in the shape he’s in, she’s fairly certain they’re not going to be able to move faster.

Instead of counting on their success, she starts to make contingency plans. If he gets too sick to continue, she’ll either have to continue on without him and attempt to find help, or stay with him until he’s well enough to continue or…

She shies away from the thought. No. They’re both getting out of here alive.

If he’s unable to continue, they’ll need a better shelter than the simple lean-to they’ve constructed. She doesn’t have an immediate solution for that, but they have the tarps, and hopefully she’ll be able to come up with something if or when he’s unable to keep going.

Food and shelter, she has plans for. Same with water, which she knows they’ve got enough for now, and enough of the water purification sachets that they can add to canteens full of snow to last them even longer than the food. There’s not much else they can do but forge on while they still can.

It’s a long while before she sleeps.

* * *

The second day is slower. Gren struggles to keep up with her, and their pace decreases significantly. She tries to enforce breaks, in an attempt to keep him on his feet just a little bit longer, but he’s lagging. The worse the terrain is, the slower he gets, and at one point he wipes out trying to climb over a tree that’s fallen across the trail.

Even as Gren gets weaker, he hikes without complaint. Matter of fact, as she thinks about it, she can't think of a single time he's complained other than right after the ambush, and that had been panic speaking.

As the day passes he looks worse and worse, and by evening she’s surprised he’s still on his feet. When they stop for the night, she checks his temperature with the back of her hand on his forehead and it’s clear a full fever has settled in. He looks up at her, watching, and it takes all her self-control to tamp down on the rising panic.

“How bad is it?”

_You have a fever. How do you feel?_

“Bad. But we have to keep going.”

_In the morning. For now, rest while you can._

* * *

The third day, they manage to make slow headway for about half the day. They cover a couple miles, slowly but surely, and the snow becomes spottier at the slightly lower elevation. The clouds say there’s more snow coming, but it won’t be quite the same bitter cold here as it had been higher up in the mountains.

They stop for a midday meal and Gren looks worse than ever. His hands shake as he tries to eat, and he says nothing. She watches him as he stares at the distant treeline and he seems to have trouble focusing.

Amaya knows it’s coming. There will be a point where he can go no further, and it’s going to be soon.

* * *

As they continue on, she keeps looking back to check on Gren. It’s a good thing, too, because he’s there for about an hour, following doggedly behind, and then he very suddenly isn’t. He’s splayed out on the ground, twenty yards up the trail.

Her mind is racing as she goes back to help him up to a seated position. This is where he’s stopping, then. It’s not a particularly good position, too open to the wind coming off the face of the mountain. If they could just make it down around the next bend, about a third of a mile further, they would have a better chance.

Amaya considers the problem as she helps him pull his pack off. _Can you go a bit further with help?_

Gren looks up at her blearily and nods. Getting him back to his feet is a matter of balance, and once she’s got him up, she scoops up under his good shoulder, pulling his arm about her own shoulders and using her arm about his torso to stabilize him. It feels like it takes forever to get him over the last stretch of trail, one exhausted step after another. When they make it far enough around the next face of rock to shield them from the wind, she lets him down slowly and goes back for his pack.

It doesn’t take long to hike up and back, but it gives her time to make a decision. If she goes alone, even if she does make it, there’s no guarantee she’ll be able to find him again if she comes back with help. She can’t leave him. More importantly, she can’t bring herself to leave the last of her squad behind.

Final decision made, it’s easier to lay out plans. If he’s getting sick from an infection in the wound, he’ll be down for days, at the very least. They need a more permanent shelter than the lean-tos they’ve been building. She’s got half a day of light left, so perhaps she can find something in the rock face, an outcropping or a cave. If she can find something, she’s got a potential plan.

It’s a step-by-step process from there on out. She has to break everything down into smaller steps, because if she tries to think of it all at once, it feels overwhelming. Check on Gren, whose fever feels hotter than ever. Eat something, and make sure Gren eats as well. Walk along the cliff face not far off the path for a good half mile before finding a cavity that seems to reach about five feet into the face of the cliff.

There’s a chance that her plan won’t work, but she’s willing to give it a shot, if only to give them a slightly more permanent shelter. There’s not enough snow this low on the mountain to build a snow shelter, but if the sky is any indication, that may change soon.

She goes back to the bags, and it doesn’t take long to dig the shovel and the sunfire elf’s blade out of her pack. Before she goes, she checks on Gren, who is curled up against the base of a tree, bundled in a couple cloaks and the tarp that had been wrapped about his shoulders.

There’s not much she can do for him right now, and despite the helpless feeling that’s settled in the pit of her stomach, she gets to work.

* * *

A couple hours of work turns the cavity into a small space that’s large enough for both of them to rest comfortably. Some very careful work with the blade and a creative use of carved cones in the rock face allows her to tie off a section of rope and a tarp as a makeshift panel closure.

There’s not much comfort to be found on the cold stone, but Amaya does what she can. It takes a number of trips, but she slowly manages to cover the floor of the space with thin, soft pine needles and springy branches. A waxed tarp over the top of the pile keeps the needles from stabbing through, and provides some cushioning from the rock face.

After a short break, she goes back and hauls Gren to his feet, walking him down the trail.

 _Youth before beauty_ she signs with as much levity as she can as she tries to help him into the shelter. It's only half a joke, as Gren looks like shit.

"I'm not that young," he says petulantly.

_You're 20. Barely more than a teenager._

He looks at her owlishly for a minute, then blinks slowly. "Right. You read my file."

_Did you think I wouldn't? If it makes you feel better, I read all of my command’s files. Not that it matters much now._

"I don't know. I suppose I thought you'd just ignore it." He pauses. "Does it have anything bad about me in it?"

_Just your miserable combat scores._

He almost grins at that, sort of a weak smile. "Right."

It’s an effort, but even as the snow starts to drift down and night starts to fall, they’re tucked away in the alcove, relatively safe and comfortable given the circumstances. The shining blade gives off a fair amount of ambient heat, and whenever the space starts to get too cold, she unsheathes the blade and uses it to warm the air. It’s almost cozy, considering where they are. It gives off light as well, but it’s borderline blinding, so whenever she takes it out, she warns Gren and they cover their eyes as best they can.

A bit later, she realizes she can prop it up behind her bag, blocking the brightest part of the light but still giving them ambient light and heat. As much as she hates the elf that carried it, she can’t deny it’s a useful weapon.

"How old are you?" Gren asks abruptly, his mind clearly still on their earlier conversation.

She almost laughs. _I don’t think you’re supposed to ask your CO that._

“You said it yourself. It doesn’t matter.”

She sits next to him and takes a weary breath. _How old do you think I am?_

This time, he doesn’t hesitate. “That’s a trap.”

She can’t help but grin. _It was. I’m 29._

“You’re not that much older than me.”

 _Sometimes age is more apparent in experience._ She lets him stew on that for a moment, then asks, _Was that the first combat you’ve seen?_

“Yeah. And I made a mess of it.”

 _You’re still alive._ She doesn’t point out that several experienced soldiers are dead, or that she owes him her life. It hangs in the air between them until he closes his eyes, exhausted. She doesn’t want to let him sleep, but he can hardly keep his eyes open and there’s no keeping him awake without his eyes open to talk.

While it’s not long before Gren sleeps, Amaya can’t. She can’t keep from replaying the last few days in her mind, trying to let herself hurt in controlled amounts so it doesn’t all pour out at once. She sees her team, alive and dead, and she tries to calculate how likely it is they’ll make it out of this alive and be able to give their families closure.

Even if she wanted to sleep, there’s no getting comfortable. Her arms and back ache and burn from the effort of carving and moving several hundred pounds of rock. It’s only when Gren unconsciously curls into her side that she forces herself to stop moving in an attempt not to wake him.

Even so, sleep doesn’t come easily.

* * *

The storm lasts three days. Three long, painful days of waiting for the snow to stop and watching Gren succumb to the infection. He spends much of the time asleep, which is a blessing. When he isn’t asleep, he slips in and out of delirium and it’s horrible. Sometimes he speaks, but it’s mumbled or nonsensical in a way that makes his lips near impossible to read. Occasionally he frees his good arm from the blanketing cloaks and is able to sign, although it’s mostly a mix of jumbled sign and incomplete words. Sometimes she can get the gist of it, but mostly he’s incomprehensible.

The fourth morning she pulls the edge of the tarp back to a clear, soft lavender sky staining the fresh snow grey.

Gren still sleeps, and she lets him. Instead, she pulls her water-resistant outer coat on and ventures out on her own. She walks back up along the ridge, taking in the way the trees are laden with sticky blobs of snow and watching the sky bleed from lavender to vivid fuchsia to pink to peach and then-

Then the sun rises.

It’s almost blinding in its intensity, rebounding off the snow even when she looks away, searing itself into the back of her eyes. The fresh layer of snow is stunning, and the way it covers the world is awe-inspiring. Something in her chest twists, wrenching with repulsion from the reminder that beauty still exists in a world that hurts so very much, a world that rips life and love and friendship away with no remorse. It’s ugly and awful but it all rushes out of her, like a river bursting through a fragile dam.

She sits down in the snow and sobs until her eyes itch and she can’t cry anymore.

* * *

When Amaya finally heads back to the shelter, she has no idea how much time has passed. The sun seems high in the sky, and the snow threatens to blind her. It’s not until she gets to the shelter and pulls back the tarp that she realizes Gren is gone.

It takes a moment for it to sink in. The packs are there, the cloaks and tarps are there, but her Lieutenant is very much absent. She wants to cry, but she can’t cry anymore. She’s cried out, and where there should be a feeling of pressure, there’s nothing but frantic fear.

She spins and takes in the tracks in the snow, really looking at them to determine which ones are hers and which ones are his. It’s not terribly difficult to follow him, but her chest feels like it’s going to cave in. Her heart seems to want to shatter her ribs from the overwhelming sense of dread.

When she finds him, he’s slumped in the snow on his knees but curled in on himself. He responds groggily when she shakes his shoulder and although his eyes are open, he doesn’t seem to understand what’s going on. His clothes are soaked through and covered with half-melted snow, and he has only the underlayer of his coat, which looks as wet as the rest of his clothes.

_What the hell are you doing? Why would you go out like this?_

He doesn’t seem to understand what she’s signing. There’s no getting him to his feet to walk back under his own power in this state. Instead, she pulls him up as much as she can and squats low, lifting with her legs.

It takes less effort than she expects to carry him back, a bad sign.

* * *

Gren slowly regains cognizance as she carries him back, and by the time she pulls him inside, the owlish look of confusion that’s become familiar is back on his face. He clings to her coat, and although most of what he says is impossible to read, she does catch one thing he keeps repeating.

“Please don’t leave me. Please. Please.”

Right now, Amaya doesn’t have the strength to respond to that. She wants to rip her entire heart out of her chest so she just…doesn’t have to feel things, so she doesn’t have to feel wretched for making him think she’d abandoned him. Right now, she can’t think about that. She has to address the issue at hand, and that’s the way he shivers.

Back in the shelter, she puts him down carefully and signs _Warmth. Dry clothes. Strip._ She exaggerates the signs and takes it slow. He watches her hands with a distant, glassy look, but the explanation gets through to him and he tries to struggle out of his wet clothes, but he only gets so far before he’s wobbling with effort.

She helps him undress. Part of her wants to be embarrassed, or maybe has a sort of secondhand embarrassment for him, but the logical part of her overrides it and doesn’t give a single solitary fuck. In the last week, they’ve both seen death in a rather intimate manner. About the biggest concern either of them has about their bodies is that they’re still living and breathing. There’s not much room for that sort of shame out here.

Under all the layers, he’s gotten even skinnier, if that’s possible. His ribs are visible and the definition in what little muscle he has is even clearer, but it’s awful, as if the thin layer of fat has melted off of him.

Caretaking doesn’t come naturally to her. She’s never really had any inclination toward it, never had the gut response to take care of people the way her sister does. She’s never had any maternal instincts to speak of, but as she gets him tucked in under the cloaks and blankets again, she feels both fiercely protective of him and helpless.

Caretaking is unrealistic for her. But surviving? That’s second nature. So she tells herself she’s got two lives she’s got to see through this. That, she can handle. Break it down, piece by piece. Right now she needs to get Gren warm and then make sure he can handle some food and water.

He grabs her wrist as she moves away to grab a canteen, but it’s so weak she inadvertently breaks his grip. “Please don’t leave me,” he says, and there’s a desperate look in his sunken eyes.

_Drink. Then you need to eat something._

There’s relief in his expression, and he tries to eat without complaint.

After eating, Amaya sheds the damp outer layer of her gear and curls up next to him under the layers of cloaks and tarps, which are so warm they’re almost cozy. Still, Gren shivers, and when Amaya checks his forehead for fever, it’s almost scorching hot to the touch.

She wants to tell him everything is going to be alright, but she can’t make that promise. Instead, she spells _N-o-t l-e-a-v-i-n-g_ into his hand where he can feel the shape of the letters.

It’s a long minute before he slowly signs back _t-h-a-n-k._

* * *

The next few days are even worse. As if the symptoms of the infection aren’t bad enough, they get worse, possibly in response to his exposure to the cold.

Gren sleeps most of the time, awful, fevered sleep. She cares for him as best she can, making sure he has water even once he stops eating due to stomach pain, but it’s a horrible waiting game they’re playing. Either the fever is going to win or he is, and honestly, it could go either way.

While he sleeps, she spends her time pouring over what information the squad managed to gather about the trails and terrain. If Gren survives the fever, she’s going to have to find a way to get him to help, and even on the easiest terrain, she doesn’t think he could make it all the way back to the town they’d started in.

There are two small settlements marked on the map as possibly abandoned, one an outpost, one a homestead. Their best bet would be to try for one of them. They might be able to find better medical supplies, or people, or a clear path back to town. The closest one is nearly ten miles away if she’s reading the map correctly, and though much of the ten miles is at a lower elevation, it’s impossible to know if Gren will be able to make it until the fever burns out.

She goes over the notes and the map until her eyes itch, and then she checks her notes again, restless and unable to do anything else. She feels…old. That’s what it is. She feels old and existentially exhausted. She’s tired of fighting, tired of waiting. Just…tired. It would be so much easier to walk out into the snow and just find somewhere to go to sleep until the cold takes her.

She’s not going to give up, because she can’t. But she so, so tired of fighting.

Three days pass that way, but the fourth day is awful. Gren’s fever has left him delirious much of the time, but that day his eyes are glassy as he stares at the ceiling. His face has taken on a horrible hollow quality and his eyes look almost sunken, as do his cheeks.

There’s more snow, not a storm like before, but another four inches or so comes down over the course of the day. Around midday, Gren’s breathing takes on a horrible rasping quality, something she can see in his face and feel in his chest as he’s curled up beside her. He’s lucid in a way he hasn’t been for days, and she has a horrible, sinking feeling about it.

_What are you thinking about?_

He’s got a nervous look, uncertain. He shrugs with his good shoulder, wincing when the motion jostles his other shoulder as well.

 _Unless we make it out of here alive, rank means nothing. There’s no protocol for this_.

He seems to relax a bit. “Thinking about home. Just,” he hesitates, “wondering if anyone misses me.”

_I’m sure they do._

“I didn’t leave home on particularly good terms with my parents.”

They have a conversation that lasts most of the day, on and off in his more lucid moments. They talk about family and friends, schooling and service, all sorts of things. They talk about what else they might have done if they hadn’t joined up, and Amaya is surprised (but somehow not) to learn that Gren had dreamed of being a teacher as a child. It all feels very…real. Like she’s spent most of the past month with him and never really gotten to know much beyond the face he puts on to do his job.

It almost makes it worse when the rasping gets worse that night. She holds him close and feels his chest move, feels the rattle in his lungs, and she knows. She knows with absolute certainty that he’s not going to make it through the night.

It’s like a bowstring snapping, one moment she’s fine and the next she’s drowning, terrified to be left alone and swamped by the guilt of losing the rest of the squad and so, so sick at heart at the idea of losing Gren, this ridiculous shining light of a human being she’s been entrusted with. Amaya cries, and it’s the first time she’s really cried in front of him while he’s awake.

It doesn’t faze him at all. Gren simply accepts it, like this is just part of how things are. He wraps his arm around her and hums something, just loud enough that she can feel the vibration in his chest and throat. It’s a simple gesture, but comforting. Slightly less awful than crying on her own.

Later that night, he cries as well, but he doesn’t seem to see her. All she can do is hold on to him and hope that she can return some of the comfort he’d given her. There’s no sign of recognition from him and she knows he’s delirious again. There’s a sick feeling of tension and trepidation in her chest, the fear that he’ll go in the night or she won’t be able to understand his last words, the same as Rowen. That he’s going to die and there’s nothing she can do to stop it or help ease it.

She has the feeling she’s going to wake next to yet another corpse in the morning.

* * *

Somehow, Gren survives the night. Somehow.

So Amaya makes a decision: they’re going to walk out of there. Or rather, she is. But not without him.

Gren isn’t strong enough to go anywhere on his own, but he still needs medical help and their supplies will only last so long. She can’t just not do anything about it, not now that Gren is still alive and relatively lucid. She checks him and she’d even swear his fever has gone down a bit.

Amaya justifies it to herself. She’s done ruck marches with a hundred pounds on her back. At this point, he can’t be that much more. And it’s mostly downhill. Sort of. Mostly. And if she’s read the map right, it’s only ten miles. Only ten miles.

She keeps telling herself that. Only ten miles. She can do ten miles in her sleep.

And if she doesn’t, he’s probably going to die, and she’s come too far to let that happen. Gren is hers, he’s her responsibility, and death can fuck off.

Honestly, in the end, it’s not even a question of if they’re going to make a go for it, but when.

* * *

She waits one more day, prepared to go when the weather breaks. She packs the lightest she can, the absolute bare necessities. Six days of food, minimal rations. Water. Eight rank pauldrons. The burning elvish blade. Rope, a single tarp, and her shield, which she fashions into a makeshift sled. It’s a gamble, but they can’t stay here indefinitely.

“This is never going to work,” he says, eyeing the sled with a mix of skepticism and distaste.

 _It’ll work better than you trying to walk in the snow_.

She’s not wrong, and that’s enough to shush him. It’s awkward and hard going, pulling him on the makeshift sled, but it’s far easier than any alternatives. They manage to make it almost four miles according to the map before they run out of snow.

They stop and eat, and Amaya tries to mentally prepare herself for the rest of the hike. She re-packs what rations she can into the largest pockets of her coat and slings a pair of canteens crosswise over her shoulders. The pauldrons get tied to the crossbody strap of one of the canteens. All told, it’s enough for maybe two days, which would theoretically get her back to this point if everything goes wrong. The elvish blade stays at her hip, but her shield is left behind. It’s another gamble, but there’s not much choice.

When she helps Gren to his feet, he wobbles dangerously, but at least he can stand up. _I’m going to carry you the rest of the way. We’re making for a settlement down in the valley. We might be able to get you medical aid._

He blinks at her slowly, his eyes still sunken in his face. It takes him a minute to comprehend what she’s signed, but when he does, he shakes his head. “I’m too heavy.”

She’s not going to tell him that he’s dropped a dangerous amount of weight since he got sick. _No you’re not. But I’m going to need your help._

He nods quickly at the mention of helping, still somehow agreeable despite the hell he’s been through, and her heart breaks a bit. _Once I get you on my back, I need you to hold on._

There’s a long minute as he processes it, then shakes his head again. “ ‘m too heavy, you can’t-”

_Shut up and stop arguing. I will order you if I have to, I’m still technically your CO._

That sinks in quickly, and his eyebrows look like they might pop right off his face. Even so, he almost looks like he’s going to argue again. Almost. Then he thinks better of it and closes his mouth.

_Good. You understand what I need you to do?_

He nods. She leans him forward on her back, wraps his arms down over her shoulders like a rucksack, then reaches back to hike him up and pull his legs up around her waist. Gren goes easy, flinching only when his shoulder is pulled into a bad position and otherwise simply accepting the shape she pulls him into. It’s painfully easy to pick him up, and he’s clingy once she’s got him where she wants him. He had been thin to start with, but now he’s down to little more than skin and bone. She’d known he would be light, what with the way he’s struggled to drink water the last few days, but it feels like the fever has eaten right through what little muscle mass he had.

She wants to cry again, but she doesn’t. There’s no time to cry now. Unshed tears burn in her sinuses as she ties a cloak as a sling to help support his weight and keep him from sliding.

Gren says something, but she doesn’t know what. She feels his chest move with the sound, but it’s lost to her.

So she checks the map again and sets off.

* * *

They travel without discussion. She can’t see his face to read his lips and she can’t sign to him with the way she holds his arms over her shoulders. The only consistent communication they have is the soft puff of air warming the neck of her cloak as he breathes, slumped with his head on her shoulder. The knowledge that she isn’t carrying a corpse is enough to keep her moving.

The cloak acting as a strap helps, taking some of his weight off her shoulders and hips and distributing it more evenly across her back. Still, it’s one thing to carry a rucksack, another thing entirely to carry a person.

It’s downhill. Somewhat. Sort of. She tells herself it is. She can do this, because it’s mostly downhill. The few bits of uphill trail she comes across, they’re short, she tells herself. They’re short. She can get up them, because there’s a downhill on the other side. Slow is alright, but she has to get up to go down. Up to go down. There are only a few more bits uphill. Only a few more. It’s about five miles. Then four.

It burns. Everything burns. Every muscle in her body is bloody screaming agony, but she isn’t going to put him down until she has to stop. It’s slow going, but slow is fine as long as she doesn’t stop. As long as she has daylight, she has to keep moving.

Three miles. It takes a few hours, but exhaustion finally starts to mess with her head. She’s ungodly slow. The time spent hiding in shelters, eating somewhat poorly, has taken its toll on her, although not nearly as badly as Gren. She’s tired. So, so tired. Out of the edge of her vision, she’d swear she sees things, but the moment she turns her head to check, they’re gone. It only gets worse as she hikes, as everything burns and burns and burns.

She hopes and prays to any gods listening that the figures she thinks she sees flitting in and out of the trees aren’t more elves. She can’t fight them now. She can’t. They’ll both be dead before she has a chance to drop Gren and draw the elvish blade, and she has no other weapon.

The trees hide much of her view, and the roots all across the trail threaten to trip her up at any time. She moves as quickly as she can without losing her footing, but it feels like she’s slowed to a snail’s pace. Every step blazes in her back and hips and thighs and calves and--fuck, every step is agonizing.

They come over an outcropping and the valley below is laid out under the peachy sky like a miniature model. Part of her wants to stop, to put Gren down, but she knows that if she does, she’s not getting back up. There are a couple of buildings nestled in the crook of the valley, the rooftops long overgrown with moss and lichen and invisible to all but the keen eye, or someone looking for them. The sun is falling toward the mountains, night is coming, but they’re close. So close. Maybe a mile. Hopefully less. She just can’t afford to get lost.

She tracks out a path on the map and keeps moving, hoping, praying she can go fast enough to get there before she loses daylight.

* * *

There is a clearing, and a building. A house? A house. There are a few more small buildings, but the big one can’t be more than fifty yards away. She can see a door, barely visible in the darkness of a small overhanging porch. There’s a part of her that knows she just has to make it to the door, knock on it. She has to, somehow.

But here, so close to possible help, she falls. Her legs fail, folding under her almost neatly. Gren is unconscious, blessedly so, because she’s done. She can’t get back up. Her legs refuse to move.

Here in this pocket between the mountains, someone has made a life, but in the cold night, there is no one here, no one to help. She’s going to lose Gren, she knows it. She tries to prepare herself for it, but she can summon nothing but cold, sharp fear of an inevitable eventuality.

With no warning, there’s a figure standing in front of her, small, spritely, with a head of hair so blonde it looks white in the moonlight. Physically, Amaya’s too exhausted to react much, to startle. The child looks at her quizzically, says something Amaya can’t read. She signs _Help_ but there’s no way the child can possibly understand.

Then the child disappears, and Amaya wonders if it was all a hallucination. That she’s finally losing her mind, that this is what breaks her after everything they’ve been through.

* * *

There are people. They come around the side of the house, four figures. The child is easy to make out, their hair bright white. The others wear light winter garments, hats and coats. They’re taller, adults, and she can make out faces as they come closer, although she can’t quite read their lips. There’s a woman, sturdy looking with a dark braid that falls from her hood. There’s a young man, nearly as tall as her, with a warped scar that creeps up his neck and across his jaw. The third is a tall man with tattoos across his face and-

Amaya looks up into his eyes, clear purple eyes, and she knows. 

She's already as good as dead.


	5. Chapter 5

There’s no fight left in her. They’ve come so far, and this is it, this is where it’s all going to end.

The woman is saying something but Amaya can’t see her well enough to make out what she’s saying. She’s reaching for the knot on the cloak Amaya’s used as a strap to help support Gren’s weight, and she’s loosening it and trying to pull it up over Amaya’s head, and Gren slumps to the ground away from her back and, somewhere, somehow, Amaya summons the strength to grab his arm and not let go and-

The woman pries her hand from Gren’s arm and Amaya almost, almost tries to fight her, but she can’t. She just…can’t. It’s not a choice. Thankfully, the woman stoops to pull her up with the help of the younger man. The elf carries Gren alone, his good arm dangling limp behind.

The group helps them inside, a slow, painful process as the two that help Amaya try to aid her in walking, only to finally change plans and scoop her up, carrying her between them like their arms are a sling.

She doesn’t understand. It doesn’t make sense. The one who carries Gren is an elf, but they’re clearly trying to help. If the group was going to kill them, it would have made more sense to do so outside, where they wouldn’t have to clean up a mess. Instead, they’re taken inside and Amaya is placed on a padded bench by the fire. They put Gren with her, and even as he slumps into her side she almost cries with relief.

The young man disappears, sent off to do something by the woman, and then the elf disappears as well. The woman pulls off her coat and drapes it over the back of a chair, then stoops to Amaya’s level and says something. Amaya’s still trying to figure a way around all this mess when Gren vanishes from her side, picked up again by the elf, whose return she had failed to notice.

For a moment, the overwhelming sense of panic rushes back over her, and her heart is in her throat and she’s crying again and she wants to swear but to do so, she’ll have to let go of Gren and they can’t understand her anyway and-

Amay tips off the padded bench and the woman catches her, but the elf whisks Gren up and away as she tries to recover. The woman says something but she can’t understand. Panic grows in her chest and she can’t breathe, she’s choking on the air and the woman works at the buckles on the last of her armor, the few pieces she hadn’t left behind for the sake of conserving energy.

The breastplate comes off and she still can’t breathe, her lungs and throat aren’t working and she feels like she’s drowning and-

The woman pulls her close, gets an arm behind her back and one under her legs and picks her up bodily. It’s a moment of surprise, just enough to break through the rising panic like a crack in a pane of glass. Amaya catches a couple of words from the woman’s lips and it appears she keeps repeating, “It’s alright, we’ve got you,” and something else she can’t make out and, “we’ll go with them,” and then they follow the elf to another room and-

It’s a bedroom. It’s a bedroom, with a bed and blankets and pillows, a welcome sight. The elf’s got Gren laid out on it, and is working on freeing him from his coat. Her first instinct is to grab at the elf, to drag him away from Gren but she can’t, and…he’s not doing anything that appears to be actively malicious.

It goes against every instinct for her to tamp down the fear and anger that surges through her, but she doesn’t have many options. The woman helps her onto the other side of the bed and lets go of her and Amaya…stops. She just stops for a moment, because a she’s at a complete loss how to proceed.

Amaya tries to put words together that they’ll understand, but she’s so out of practice with audible speech that it’s clear she’s making no headway. After a couple of tries, she tries to explain with more obvious signals instead of standard sign. She points to her ear and shakes her head and then mimics writing, a sign that even speaking people ought to be able to understand. The woman watches her for a moment, then nods and says something to the child, who hovers in the door with an expression that might be curiosity or might be wariness.

The girl returns with a slate and chalk, handing them to the woman who…must be her mother. Amaya looks at them carefully and is almost certain the girl is her daughter. At the very least, they’re related, with similar noses and eyes so dark they’re almost black. The biggest difference is the little girl’s hair, so blonde it’s almost white, and her skin, which is several shades lighter than the woman’s.

With use of the slate, introductions are simple, but explaining what’s happened to them takes time. Amaya explains the ambush and their trek back to safety, watching the elf, who the woman introduces as Iolas, warily. His expression darkens and his eyes narrow, but he doesn’t say anything until Amaya writes **where is the nearest healer?**

At that, he turns to Mora, the woman, and crooks his head toward the door. They leave for several minutes, and in their absence Amaya looks to Gren, checking him over. His fever is mostly gone, although his skin still has a waxy pallor to it.

When they return, Mora looks between Amaya and Iolas with a wary expression. To Amaya’s surprise, it’s Iolas that takes the slate this time, writing, **Will you allow me to treat him?**

**You’re a healer?**

**Enough to stabilize him for travel to your encampment.** Something ugly twists in her chest, but there’s no time for that. It takes all of her resolve to simply nod her acceptance.

As Iolas gets to work cleaning Gren up, she and Mora go back and forth, discussing what had happened in further depth. Amaya keeps a wary eye on Iolas as he unwraps Gren’s shoulder, but other than a faint frown, he shows no sign of anything but careful concern. When the bandage finally comes free, the frown deepens, and there’s a cloying scent of blood and rancid meat and the faint smell of cooking herbs.

The elf proffers to Mora for the slate and writes **Yarrow?**

Amaya nods and writes back **For the bleeding and a calendula salve**

Iolas nods what might be approval and continues his work. He leaves and returns with a bowl of water and clean cloths, taking care not to jostle Gren’s shoulder further as he works.

Mora disappears and returns with water before disappearing again. Amaya watches as Iolas continues to work on cleaning up Gren’s shoulder, although when he disappears and reappears with a carefully packed satchel she recognizes some of the materials in, she doubts his claim to be a healer less.

He holds his hand out for the slate and she passes it to him. **There is too much dead tissue for him to continue healing. He’s at risk for further infection**

Amaya looks at the tools he’s pulled from the kit and placed on the small nightstand. A nervous, sinking feeling settles in her stomach. **What do we need to do?**

**I can clean much of it away, but it will need to be cut away. I mean him no harm**

She doesn’t want to trust him. She doesn’t want to and every gut instinct tells her not to. But…

**Do it**

Iolas watches her for a long moment, eyes not leaving hers, then calls for someone. The young man appears, listens to what the elf has to say, then disappears.

After that, it’s a waiting game. Mora brings her a bowl of broth as Iolas goes about preparing his tools to help Gren, and then it’s a waiting game. Amaya tries to get some answers, asking the elf **What are you doing here?**

The elf shrugs and responds **This is my home**

**Outside of Xadia?**

He quirks an eyebrow at her and although it’s a wary expression, he writes his response, which takes time. **This is mostly neutral ground. There are few travelers this far out. We have few visitors, and we have been told that this territory belongs to both countries**

**What about taxes?**

**The land has little value and armies have stayed south. Mountains and knotted forests aren’t worth fighting over.** He rubs the chalk out with his sleeve, then asks, **How long ago was his wound?**

Amaya focuses and tries to count the days backward. **15 days ago. He burned through the worst of the fever two days ago**

Iolas frowns, but nods. **I will do what I can**

It’s not long before the young man, who Mora introduces as Venn, reappears with a bucket of snow and then things are moving too fast for Amaya to question it.

Mora leaves and returns with a small blade Iolas had handed her, holding it only by the handle and passing it to the elf carefully. He makes quick work of things, cutting away tissue and cleaning up the wound with boiled rags, then adding a couple of quick stitches with a long, curved needle. There’s fresh blood, and Amaya bites down on the anger, telling herself this will help in the long run.

When it’s all over and Iolas is wrapping Gren’s shoulder back up, Amaya is hit with the sudden realization that she’s utterly exhausted.

The elf takes the slate and writes **That should help for now** before passing it back.

Amaya looks at the elf. **Why are you helping us?**

He looks at her warily for a long moment, then takes the proffered slate. **I mean you no harm**

**But why help us?**

He stares at her for a long minute, then at the slate as he wipes the chalk away with a sleeve. He seems to consider his answer, then simply writes **I’m a healer. It’s what I do**

She has so many more questions, but she just doesn’t have the energy to ask them. She helps them get Gren tucked into the pile of blankets and finally lets herself fall back into the pillow. She’s done. She’s so tired, but she’s done, and she can feel Gren beside her. She knows they’re in danger, that they won’t be safe until they’re back in friendly territory, but this place is safer than where they’ve been.

Amaya looks up at the ceiling, which flickers brown and gold in the light of the lantern, finally allowing herself a small spark of hope.

She doesn’t remember falling asleep.

* * *

Amaya wakes to deep orange sunlight peeking through the crack of the pulled curtains. There’s a moment of surprise as her memory catches up, but it’s surprise, not panic.

It takes some time to push herself up to her side so she can check Gren over. He’s still asleep, but the color is coming back to his face already. A thorough check reveals that his wounds have been tended to carefully and he’s been cleaned up. His feet are blistered from mild frostbite, but they’ve finally got his boots off and wrapped them.

Rising from the bed is another task entirely. Her legs are a searing mess of white-hot pain. Between muscle pain and inflammation and the remaining exhaustion, it’s so very tempting to just stay in bed, but that’s not going to get her any answers. She pushes herself to her feet slowly, using the wall for support as she totters around the bed to the door. She takes the slate with her, tucking it in her waistband. It’s irritating to rely on a slate to communicate, but until Gren is back on his feet, it will have to do.

She makes it a couple steps down the hallway before her left leg gives out for an excruciating moment, her muscles simply refusing to do what she asks of them. She catches herself on the wall, but the noise summons Iolas, who offers her an arm.

While it’s an innocuous gesture, the wall is much more solid, so she shakes her head no as she pushes herself to support all her weight on her feet again. He hovers at her shoulder until she runs out of wall and then helps her the last few awful steps to a stuffed chair. He proffers to the slate and she hands it to him, as well as the piece of chalk she’s tucked behind her ear so not to lose it.

**Hungry?**

She nods thankfully, and before long there’s a bowl of some sort of stew warming her hands. It’s a gamey meat with carrots and peas, and she downs half of it in a daze before eating becomes a conscious thought. It might just be the best thing she’s ever eaten. Just the thought of going back to trail rations is awful.

Iolas offers to clean up the cut on her face, although he says there’s not much he can do to prevent scarring at this point. The warm water wiping the grime from her face is relaxing, although one of the two salves he uses stings horribly. It feels unnecessarily kind, but she’s thankful nonetheless.

After, she simply sits in contemplation for a time, nothing changing but the slant of light through the windows until the girl comes in, playing with some carved figures.

It’s not until she’s woken by a careful hand on her shoulder that she realizes how tired she still is, and looking up at the elf that woke her confirms it. She’s still too tired to handle this. So she nods and slowly goes to pull herself back to her feet. She doesn’t mean to jerk away slightly when he gives her an arm. She tells herself it’s just nerves.

But there’s no denying the sense of unease that settles in her gut as he helps her back to the room with Gren.

* * *

The next time she wakes, it’s to the sensation of something moving near her feet. She cracks an eye open to see the little girl playing on the end of the bed, trotting a toy horse and rider across the quilt, which is strewn with a number of other figures. The morning sun pours through the window, warming the room pleasantly. When Amaya turns to sit up, the girl’s eyes bolt wide and she hunches down, as if she can hide at the foot of the bed. Amaya smiles at the girl, who peeks up at her warily for another minute before standing back up and giving her a tentative smile.

It’s a slow, eerie realization that breaks over Amaya as she meets the girl’s eyes. She looks like her mother, certainly, but her hair isn’t blonde, it’s white, and the sun shining in her faces turns her eyes not black or dark brown as Amaya had first thought, but a deep, deep purple.

Suddenly, it all makes sense, and Amaya isn’t sure what to do. It’s not as though there’s anything to say, and she’s not about to question a child, or even if she were, it’s not as though the girl would understand her. It feels like a stalemate, the two of them looking at each other and sharing uncertain smiles.

It’s the girl that breaks the moment, holding out her hand and offering Amaya the horse and rider she’d been playing with.

It’s a small gesture, but Amaya feels like she’s going to have another meltdown as she accepts the toy with hands that shake, ever so slightly. When the girl points to the slate, Amaya hands it over without question.

**I’m Maeve. Who are you?**

Her handwriting is lopsided but legible, and Amaya grins and breathes through a burn of tears because this girl can’t be more than seven or eight years old, and here she is, offering something like friendship.

* * *

Their conversations are slow and a bit stilted as they’re forced to use the slate, but Maeve is more patient than most children. Conversing and playing with her passes a couple hours, until Amaya feels Gren shift at her side. All of their attention abruptly shifts to him. Amaya twists, trying to be able to see him fully.

When his eyes finally focus, he looks around for only a moment before he finds Amaya. He slowly blinks a couple times, then a disbelieving smile grows on his face. “We made it?”

_We made it_ , she signs.

His eyes flick from her to the girl behind her, and he smiles. “Captain Amaya can read your lips sometimes, but only if she can see you well and you enunciate.”

Her whole heart feels like it’s going to rip out of her chest with relief as she manages to make out every single word he says. Because yes, he’s right, but he’s also so much easier to read than most people. She’s grown accustomed to recognizing his words and expressions incredibly fast.

It’s not long before Iolas appears in the doorway, likely drawn by the sound of Gren’s voice. Amaya fights her gut instinct to tense up and as she feels Gren tense next to her, she places a hand on his good wrist in warning. _They’ve helped us._

_E-l-v-e-s?_ he signs back incredulously, using only his good hand.

_Just him. He’s safe_.

It takes time for Gren to relax, but as he does, it’s easier for Iolas to check him over. His fever is almost entirely gone, and some of the color has returned to his face. It takes him what feels like ages to drink some broth from an earthenware cup, but he manages it without help.

It’s only later, sitting on the porch with Gren and drinking an herbal tea Iolas claims will help them regain their strength, that reality finally sinks in. They sit there, looking up at the mountains that should have killed them.

Nothing needs to be said. There’s simply nothing to say.

* * *

The next few days are almost surreal as they recuperate. Maeve opens up, running around the place in a way she hadn’t before. She talks to Gren constantly, and he interprets as best he can without his arm, which is tied in a sling. Maeve even starts picking up little bits of sign, mimicking Amaya as best she can.

The family’s story becomes clearer over time, although Amaya’s certain they’re still missing bits. Maeve is Mora and Iolas’s daughter, and Venn is, for lack of a better explanation, an adopted son, even though nothing out here in the borderlands is officially recognized.

Part of Amaya still wants to be angry with the elf, simply because of what his people have done to her, to Gren, but she can’t. She recognizes it, but it leaves an ugly, angry ache in her chest that just doesn’t seem to leave. She wants to hate him. She wants to hate him so, so much. But she can’t.

Both of them, Iolas and Mora, are good people. They took strangers in, fed them and clothed them and gave them a place to rest. They aren’t bad people. She can’t bring herself to hate them.

It’s another four days before Gren is back on his feet and functional enough to travel. In an unexpected move, Mora offers to guide them to the encampment herself, so Gren can ride one of their two horses.

It’s yet another unexpected kindness, and although Amaya expresses her thanks over and over again through Gren, it still feels insufficient.

* * *

The remaining trail, though mostly level, takes them the better part of a week to traverse. Mora doesn’t talk much, but Amaya doesn’t mind. It’s evening when they finally make the encampment, and the moment Gren announces who they are to the evening watch, the world seems to explode into chaos.

Amid the confusion, Mora disappears. When Amaya has the chance to search, there’s no sign of her.

Part of her wishes the woman had stayed for some sort of payment or reward.

The other part of her understands why she couldn’t.

* * *

They’re whisked away to medical, where they’re poked and prodded for what seems like hours. Amaya is far better off, a bit worse for wear but outwardly still in decent shape, although the medics deliver the news about the gash on her face with seeming regret.

Iolas was right, of course. There’s little to be done. It’s been open long enough, there’s no use in trying to stitch it shut. The scar tissue that has started to form holds the gash open about half an inch, and with the proximity to her eye, they aren’t about to open it back up and risk causing further damage.

They act as though it’s terrible news, but quite frankly, Amaya couldn’t care less. She’s never cared much what she looks like, so something as small as a little scar seems unimportant.

Instead, she focuses on Gren’s diagnosis. The medic that sees to him allows her into the curtained off space they’ve got him in as she leaves.

_Move your ass and budge up or I’ll move it for you._

Gren gives her a weak smile and shifts over in the camp bed, giving her enough room to sit down. “Oh, I don’t doubt that.”

They sit there in companionable silence for a couple of minutes and she waits for him to give her the verdict in his own time. It’s slow, and she can see him wrestling with it inwardly, but she’s patient. They’ve got as much time as they need now.

“The medic doesn’t think I’m going to lose the arm, but it’s going to be a challenge to get the full range of motion and dexterity back. And…” he hesitates, “she doesn’t think I’ll ever be able to carry a weapon with that arm again. I’m sorry.”

She stares at him, still somehow more surprised at his regret than anything else. _You’re sorry?_

“I was never cut out to be much of a soldier anyway,” he sighs. “I’m just…I’m sorry, Captain. I think you’re going to need to find a new interpreter.”

An emotion twists in her chest and catches low in her throat, something that isn’t exactly ugly, just full of potential. Potential for good or potential for bad, it remains to be seen, but it’s a feeling that begs for something to happen.

_I want you to stay on,_ she signs.

He gives a weak one-shouldered shrug. “I’d be useless in a fight, if something happens I’d just be dead weight.”

_We have non-combat positions. There’s no reason an interpreter can’t be one. We’ll just need to consider how to keep you safe if we get in trouble._

Gren stares down at the blanket draped over his lap for a long minute. “I’d…I’d like some time to consider, before accepting.”

_Take the time you need, although at the very least I’d like you to continue in your capacity as an interpreter as I report back to command._

He looks up at her and there’s steel in his eyes, something she’s only seen a couple of times but has already come to recognize as sheer bloody determination. “Absolutely.”

_Thank you._ They sit there for a couple minutes again before she frowns. _Actually, this offer has one condition._

“Anything, ma’am.”

She makes a face. _No, two conditions. One, you never call me ma’am again._

He gives her a bemused smile. “Deal. What else?”

_You don’t fucking censor me when you interpret._

That draws an actual laugh from him. A real, honest-to-gods laugh, like they hadn’t just spent weeks in the mountains trying not to die. His smile is hopeful, a slash of cheer across an otherwise miserable face. The bruising in his shoulder has spread up his neck, leaving him with a rainbow of fading indigo, green, and yellow. He still looks like hell, but he’s got a small smile, and that feels more important than anything else.

“You know what? To heck with it. I don’t need time to decide.” He takes a deep breath and nods. “I’ll take it.”

_You sure?_

He holds out his good hand. “Absolutely.”

It’s a simple gesture, but they clasp hands on it and it’s a promise they both know down to their bones. Snow or rain, lightning or thunder, they’re going to see each other through the oncoming storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thanks for sticking with me on this. I know there are a number of loose ends, but there’s a reason for that: this is part 1 of a series. I think the rest of the series will fall in a singular episodic style (mostly one-shots) but as far as I’m concerned, these two still have quite a bit of development coming before the events of TDP.
> 
> To address a question I’ve gotten a couple of times: this piece leaves Amaya in a slightly more ambiguous position with regards to elves, but in my head it’s all going to Work Out In The End. They’re going to be fighting this war for awhile, and by the beginning of TDP, Amaya’s opinions on elves are going to be pretty solidly swayed toward the negative. 
> 
> Additionally, I’d like them both to have a fair amount of growth from their first interactions to how we see them in TDP – where I’ve eyed Amaya at 39 instead of “thirties-ish” and Gren at 30 instead of 24. From the end of this story til the start of TDP, they’ve got 10 years of development, and while I’m aware that I’m fudging their canon ages, I’m just going to roll with it because plot and military politics and a number of other reasons (but mostly because I wanted this story to occur slightly before Ezran’s birth). 
> 
> However, all of that being said, it’s my personal belief that Amaya's character development within the show will involve her overcoming her fears and prejudices toward elves, so we’ve got a little bit of set up for that here.

**Author's Note:**

> Questions, comments, and concerns are welcome! Or feel free to hit me up on tumblr at georgette-the-frog


End file.
